Clinton sent on peace mission

A Palestinian man looks at his damaged property after Israeli air strikes on the town of Rafah, in the Gaza Strip.
Photo: AFP

by
Hans Nichols

US President
Barack Obama
has dispatched Secretary of State
Hillary Clinton
to Jerusalem, Ramallah and Cairo to seek an end to fighting between Israelis and the Palestinians in Gaza.

“The goal on that trip is for everybody to use their voices, their influence, for a peaceful outcome," US Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes said on Tuesday at a briefing in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, where Mr Obama was attending the East Asia Summit. “The US bottom line is that Hamas must stop rocket attacks on Israel."

The announcement came as Israeli ministers decided to hold off from launching a ground invasion of the Gaza Strip to give Egyptian-led truce efforts a chance to work.

“A decision was taken that, for the time being, there is a temporary hold on the ground incursion to give diplomacy a chance to succeed," a senior Israeli official said on Tuesday.

Mrs Clinton will begin her trip by meeting Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu
in Jerusalem, and assist efforts by regional leaders to end the hostilities between Hamas and Israel, as both sides continued fighting.

She will then travel to the West Bank to speak to Palestinian leaders who do not control Gaza. After that, she will meet Egyptian leaders in Cairo, where United Nations Secretary-General
Ban
Ki-moon was scheduled to hold meetings on Tuesday night.

Mr Rhodes stopped short of saying that Mrs Clinton would join Egyptian-led efforts to broker a ceasefire and he did not specify if she would meet Egyptian President Mohamed Mursi.

“We believe that Israel has a right to defend itself, Israel will make decisions about its own security," Mr Rhodes said. “At the same time, if we can achieve the goal of ending rocket fire peacefully, that’s clearly prefer­able."

Related Quotes

Company Profile

Palestinians fired 26 rockets into Israel on Tuesday, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, and Israel continued its attacks on Hamas and related targets in the Gaza Strip.

Meanwhile, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehman­parast said the Gaza Strip had the right to defend itself and Iran would continue to stand up for the rights of the “oppressed" in the region.

Asked whether Iran was supplying militants in the Gaza Strip with Iranian-made Fajr-5 missiles, he said that the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad “supports the resistance and especially Hamas".

The Israeli Air Force was targeting underground depots in Gaza housing Iranian-made Fajr-5 rockets that can reach Tel Aviv, Israeli Army spokeswoman Avital Leibovich said earlier.

Mr Mehmanparast did not directly comment on whether Iran was supplying the missiles to the Gaza Strip and if so, how they were entering the territory, saying Iranian military officials would be better placed to answer the question.